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On Getting Older in Tech

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Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#161

Post by epalmer »

I'm going to apologize ahead of time. this might be a ramble.

63 year old white guy with little hair and a lifelong beard that is now white. A tad overweight as well. I feel for so many people expressing angst about ageism. I've seen it elsewhere but not where I work now.

I suspect that at the faster growing companies and companies in tech centers, mostly on the coasts, see more pronounced ageism.

My last job was at a bank in Richmond VA and there was clear ageism in IT when I got their. I moved to compliance from IT for two years and I was very successful and never observed ageism.

At 53 I moved to a web development manager and developer role in Higher Ed. I took a gigantic pay cut, if you factor in bonuses and options to work in Higher Ed. But I got to send my oldest to college at a selective school for free. A $200K after tax benefit.

I don't look back. My life is so much better now with a 40 hour work week and being in control 100% on how we architect our web and backend eco-system. I spend more than 40 hours because I love learning but I choose when, where and what I learn and work on after 40 hours.

I read these comments from people that are 36, 40, 40+ and shake my head. That is not old. 63 is not even old. I plan on working till I am at least 67. I love my job and I especially love the people I work with.

I find these days I spend less time coding and I end up with better applications because I think through the design before coding.

I'm going to ask around in Richmond VA and see what ageism exists in industry here and report back.

Keep learning, try as hard as you can to stay in shape and engage in critical thinking. Good luck to each of you in staying employed and staying happy.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#162

Post by hocuspocus »

gaius wrote: post #92
soham wrote: post #71

Elephant in the room, IMHO, is the technical interview process. In software engineering roles at big/desirable/fast-growing companies, the interview process favors faster (by definition, younger) minds. Both young and old are put thru the same/similar coding interviews at many of these places, and often faster coders are younger, and get the job. You can't fix ageism without fixing the interview process. Being jovial…

the interview process favors faster (by definition, younger) minds Algo-on-the-whiteboard interviews favour people who have recently been cramming for their final-year CS exams - by SHEER COINCIDENCE they happen to be in their early 20s...

I would even say they favor people who have been cramming algo-on-the-whiteboard type of questions. I mean, there are several businesses built around this (CtCI, leetcode, ...)

I know some North American universities have adapted to the practice and are now preparing students, but I assume this is relatively new. My algo and DS classes weren't about cramming at all.

Now to be fair, reasonable companies will focus on higher-level, systems design and architecture type of questions when interviewing seasoned engineers. Or at least, they really should.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#163

Post by blub »

kfk wrote: post #125
blub wrote: post #104

I don't find this post inspiring, I find it sad. It's partly self-encouragment, part PR. The fact that it even exists is proof that the author is facing some issues, no matter how confident they would like to appear. That recipe to stay current looks tiresome. Listen to two podcasts, two webcasts, subscribe to four magazines, teach courses, go to one conference per year, blog regularly, read blogs, follow the latest…

Can you explain what's the honest conversation to be had here? That "old" people should be looking for jobs outside of Tech? I am trying to understand your point of view. I can't even start to imagine how hard this gets when you are "old", have a family to take care of and, for god's sake, you'd like some kind of stability in life. I am 30 by the way. I feel way more prepared than 5 years ago. I think experience is i…

This could probably only be solved by changing the forever young, fashion-oriented US software development culture.

Staying current is just mitigating the problem, not solving it.

And staying current should anyway mean growing ones knowledge not replacing it every X years or investing so much time like the author recommends.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#164

Post by paganel »

blub wrote: post #104

I don't find this post inspiring, I find it sad. It's partly self-encouragment, part PR. The fact that it even exists is proof that the author is facing some issues, no matter how confident they would like to appear. That recipe to stay current looks tiresome. Listen to two podcasts, two webcasts, subscribe to four magazines, teach courses, go to one conference per year, blog regularly, read blogs, follow the latest…

> Do they really enjoy having such ephemeral knowledge and basically competing with anyone that's finished a bootcamp or not even that?

I'm not old, I've just past "il mezzo del cammin della mia vita" (meaning I'm 36), and I have to say that the latest and shiniest JavaScript frameworks are pure and utter shit, and I say that as a guy who finds languages like PHP decent enough. I've started working on a project where the "npm install" thing took 1h and a half and generated 260,000 files (?!?!?). One of the countless modules in there is called Chevron (?!?!), with a capital "C", and I sincerely don't know what it does or what's is supposed to do (to make it clear, Chevron has no relationship with said project). It's just baffling.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#165

Post by anondon »

dragandj wrote: post #141
anondon wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If he wasnt spending time on PR he wouldn't be doing interviews There's a difference between spending minimal time and no time at all on business, PR aspects. > founder worship I only stated the facts. Where is the worship?

If by facts you mean "the picture that Musk's PR machine wants you to believe as facts" then yes. Unless you spend lots of time with him personally so you state that first-hand. Somehow, I don't believe in superhumans. Elon is undoubtedly smart and successfull, but he is not a Batman (or Superman, or whatever).

By facts, I mean what Elon Musk has stated himself.

The interview with Sam Altman in How to build the future is one instance where Elon states this. In the same interview Sam also states that when Elon took him for a tour of SpaceX, Elon talked about the engineering aspects in detail and had a surprisingly good understanding of how the components worked.

Another instance is in the recode interview I think.

And how often do you see Elon going around doing PR stuff? AFAIK not much.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#167

Post by user5994461 »

rimantas wrote: post #130
IshKebab wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And why is it that most older people answering on these threads are so passionate about learning and about new technologies and the latest and greatest javascript frameworks. Do they really enjoy having such ephemeral knowledge and basically competing with anyone that's finished a bootcamp or not even that? Nobody enjoys having their hard-earned knowledge become obsolete (hence the "X11/bash/sysvinit/etc were good…

> Ruby, Docker, React, etc... Just for the record, Ruby is 21 years old. Ruby on Rails is 10 years old.

3 web development technologies :D

First tip for elders: don't be in web development.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#169

Post by dragandj »

anondon wrote: post #165
dragandj wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by facts you mean "the picture that Musk's PR machine wants you to believe as facts" then yes. Unless you spend lots of time with him personally so you state that first-hand. Somehow, I don't believe in superhumans. Elon is undoubtedly smart and successfull, but he is not a Batman (or Superman, or whatever).

By facts, I mean what Elon Musk has stated himself. The interview with Sam Altman in How to build the future is one instance where Elon states this. In the same interview Sam also states that when Elon took him for a tour of SpaceX, Elon talked about the engineering aspects in detail and had a surprisingly good understanding of how the components worked. Another instance is in the recode interview I think. And how of…

So, in an interwiev, Elon talked some engineering aspects to another enterpreneur, Sam, and Sam, who never did any rocketry, concluded that was a surprisingly good understanding of how components worked. How the hell Sam Altman does know anything about rocketry?

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Elon certainly understands some general concepts, maybe even decent amount of engineering (for a businessman). He is obviously an excellent businessman, and, I'd say, even better personal brand promoter. Everything beyond that is just PR that is obviously excellent since intelligent people fall for it.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#170

Post by theoh »

blub wrote: post #104

I don't find this post inspiring, I find it sad. It's partly self-encouragment, part PR. The fact that it even exists is proof that the author is facing some issues, no matter how confident they would like to appear. That recipe to stay current looks tiresome. Listen to two podcasts, two webcasts, subscribe to four magazines, teach courses, go to one conference per year, blog regularly, read blogs, follow the latest…

I'd say it's normal and healthy. Many industries in the UK, for example, now have what are called CPD obligations. ("Continuing Professional Development"). To stay current you have to earn a particular number of points each year by attending courses or other public events. Even something light like a public lecture might count, for example, for an architect.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_development

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